MELANCHOLY404 TECHNOLOGY

When you first set up a Mac, you’ll need an account password. If you forget that password, you’ll be unable to install software updates. Sometimes you won’t even be able to use your Mac. Apple doesn’t make it easy to reset your password, but you have some options.

Use a Few Simple Tricks

Although rare, sometimes the account doesn’t have a password. The Macintosh OS will always ask for a password, but that password could be blank. Pressing the return or enter key might be all you need. I often see this on older systems.

If you don’t get the password right after three tries, there may be a hint. Unlike iOS, the Mac won’t erase data if you get the password wrong too many times. You can keep trying without a problem. On some Macs, your Apple ID password is different than your account password. You can try your Apple ID password and see if that allows you into the Mac or lets you make changes.
Before you try any of the advanced options below, don’t rule out a faulty keyboard. If a key is sticking or not registering, your password won’t work. Try attaching an external USB keyboard and typing in your password again.

Try Some of the Advanced Options

If your Mac’s username and password is the same as your Apple ID, you can use Apple’s iForgot service to reset the password.


Most people probably have just one user account set up on their Mac. If you share your Mac with someone else, you might be able to reset your password through their account. If you know another administrator’s password, first log into their account.
Next, go to System Preferences->Users & Groups and find your username under Other Users. Select your name and then click Reset Password. Since you’re logged in as an Administrator, you won’t need to remember the old password. You’ll create a new one and then be able to login with that new password. While you’re in there, make a good hint so you don’t forget the password again.

Reset the Password With the Recovery Partition

Fortunately, Apple has a sneaky way of getting back into your Mac. Since OS X Lion, Apple created a hidden recovery partition on most Macs. To boot into the recovery partition, you’ll hold down the command and r key at the same time. Your Mac will take a while to boot and you’ll get a few different options. You won’t see an option to reset the password. Apple doesn’t want to make it that obvious.

Under the Utilities menu, open Terminal and then type
resetpassword
to open your Mac’s reset password utility.

Select the user account you want to reset and create a new password for them. After you verify it in the next field and create a hint, click Save and then quit the utility and reboot your Mac. You’ll be able to login with that username.

The Big Problem with a Password Reset

While you can get into your user account with this password reset, you can’t reset the keychain this way. The Keychain stores passwords related to your browser, Wi-Fi networks and other credentials. This prevents a hacker from resetting your Mac’s password and then getting to the stored passwords.

If you reset the password, you’ll need to create a new keychain. A common place you’ll see this problem is Safari. After a user account password reset, Safari will ask for the keychain password at launch. If you don’t have it, you’ll need to create a new keychain. All those old passwords won’t be accessible with the new password.

Why This May Not Work

If you have FileVault enabled on the startup disk, that password could be separate from your user account. If you stored that key with Apple through your iCloud account, you can reset it with your Apple ID credentials. If you created a recovery key when setting up FileVault you can use that key. If you have neither of those, you may not be able to get into the Mac.


Another possibility is that the operating system is corrupt. The problem isn’t with the password, but with the Mac. The easiest way to verify this is to boot into the recovery partition and check the disk. Reinstalling your Mac operating system will fix this type of problem.

How to Prevent This Problem

Passwords are hard to remember, so don’t beat yourself up if you forget yours. Right now you should go into your Users & Groups preferences and make sure you have a password hint. Select your account and then click Change Password… and put in your old and new passwords (they can be the same) and then be sure to give yourself a hint.
You can also change your password to match your Apple ID and iCloud password. This is one less password for you to remember. I like having separate passwords because this creates another layer of security for my Macs. Even if you have my iCloud password, you won’t be able to get into my Mac.

Whichever method you choose, don’t use the same password everywhere and store your Mac’s unique password in a password manager.  We’ve got an Ultimate Guide just for passwords.

Released on March 21st, 2016, iOS 9.3 is Apple’s latest update to their mobile OS. Although on the surface, the OS looks pretty much identical to the last iteration, there are some pretty awesome new features available to users in addition to the usual stability improvements and bug fixes.

It’s always a pleasure to see what Apple has in store for us so without further ado let’s get to it.

1. Night Shift

With the release of iOS 9.3, users will finally be able to get their hands on one of the most anticipated and talked about features. Your iOS device’s display emits a mixture of red, green and blue light. Varying the intensities of each color of light allows for the display to produce different colors as needed.
Displays, in general, tend to produce a relatively large amount of blue light which is fine for daytime use but research has indicated that exposure to blue light at night can affect a person’s sleep cycle due to the suppression of the production of melatonin, which is a hormone that makes us sleepy at night.
Mobile devices are now a staple of everyday life but research indicates that exposure to their blue light at night prevents us from falling asleep as quickly as we should, subsequently reduces morning alertness.
Night Shift is Apple’s take on a software solution to counteract this issue. It cuts the amount of blue light emitted by the device’s display at night and increases the amount of red light, resulting in a warmer colors being displayed with the aim of facilitating better sleep at night.

Users can set their desired Night Shift schedule as well as choose to manually enable the feature. The color temperature can also be adjusted.

2. Classroom

Also new to iOS 9.3 is Apple’s Classroom app which opens up powerful educational possibilities for students and teachers alike.

The Classroom app facilitates iPad sharing where students have the ability to login to an iPad which is setup for Classroom use and all of their apps, books and documents will be loaded.
Instructors can view the screen of any iPad in their class, project any student’s work onto a bigger screen via apple TV, launch an app, website or book on every iPad in a class and assist in helping students reset passwords directly from their iPad.
This is quite the promising feature and it will be quite interesting to see the impact it will have in the classrooms of today’s world

3. Secure Your Notes With a Password

This all comes back down to the sharing of devices. We will in many cases share an iOS device but not necessarily in the context of the classroom, meaning that the iPad sharing features from Classroom won’t be available.
What is written in the Notes app can be very personal and although a user may be willing to share their device with someone, they may not be willing to give access to their private notes.
With iOS 9.3, users now have the ability to password protect their notes, thus adding another layer of security and/or privacy.
You must first set your desired password from within Settings.

Within Notes, you can then select which notes you wish to protect. You don’t have to put a password on all of them.

Conclusion

So there you have it, guys. iOS 9.3 brings some exciting new features to the table which allow you to get closer to realizing the full potential of your Apple Device. Yes, even the password protection of Notes, due to the way in which it is implemented. Users can select exactly where they want their password protection.
These 3 particularly stood out to me as being significant and will more likely than not make the everyday iOS experience better for many. Were they enough reasons for you to upgrade? Let us know.

Mint has been one of the most popular online solutions over the past few years for budgeting and managing money, but it recently got a brand new competitor. Budge is a new iOS app that lets you carefully budget your shopping list or any other type of spending you might need to do. Set your budget, track your expenses and quickly see how much you’ve spent and how much you have left.

So today we’re going to compare features, pricing and overall intuitiveness of both Budge and Mint to see which comes out strongest for managing finances.

Mint Budgets are Recurring, Budge is Manually

There is a key difference in the ways Mint and Budge manage your budgets. When you set a budget using Mint, you get to decide the amount of money for it as well as how often you want it to recur, such as weekly or monthly. This means that if you’re setting a budget for groceries and you set it to monthly, every month your spending within that budget will reset itself back to zero.

That’s because Mint revolves more around your total income than Budge does. Chances are if you’re using Mint in its entirety, you’re also recording your weekly or monthly income plus all your transactions. If you have a job, taking into account that you get paid on a regular basis makes sense for your budgets.
 
Budge’s approach is different, but not necessarily better or worse. In Budge, you tap the Plus icon to create a budget then you set the amount you’re willing to spend. This will stay with you for as long as it takes to drain the budget of its money — or until you just decide to delete it.

Mint Syncs with Your Bank Accounts

Another important difference between the two is that Mint syncs with all of your bank accounts and credit and debit cards. This means that it monitors your transactions so you don’t have to input everything manually.

For instance, if you go grocery shopping and you pay your total with a card you have linked to Mint, it will notice that you paid a grocery store and automatically put that amount into the groceries budget you set up. It has an enormous list of budget categories to choose from that it can recognize transactions for. Meanwhile, Budge would require that you keep a shopping list, put in the prices for each item you want to buy manually, then check off what you bought to deduct from your budget.

You might think that Mint is the clear winner here, but there are two caveats. First, if you pay with cash, Budge is the winner since Mint wouldn’t be able to know automatically how much you spent. Plus, Budge actually doubles as a shopping list of sorts. Whether you’re grocery shopping or buying furniture for a new home, you can jot it down and budget the purchases all in that one app.

Pricing

Mint is free. Budge is $1.99. It’s only a $2 difference, but Mint is available on more platforms like Android as well as the more feature-complete website mint.com. Budge is currently only available for iOS. Don’t forget, though, Budge does include a shopping list feature which Mint does not, so there is some definite bang for the buck.

The Verdict: Budge Wins

Are you surprised? Budge is just overall a bit more flexible than Mint specifically for budgets. Even though Mint’s ability to automatically log your purchases thanks to linked cards and bank accounts is super convenient, if you’re one to pay with cash often, the benefits are negated. Plus Budge’s built-in shopping list feature makes it like a two-in-one app because you can plan exactly how to stay within your budget in advance.
Mint is still great for budgets and just money management overall, though — plus it’s free. But think of it this way: $1.99 is a small price to pay for an app that literally aims to help you save money.